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Blizzard
For the company named Blizzard, see Blizzard Entertainment. :Beware of falling ice. Those familiar with Warcraft II or Warcraft III will recognize the classic mage ability, Blizzard. It deals its damage over 8 one second long ticks, each doing 1/8th the total damage. Like all channeled spells, the mana cost is deducted before channeling starts, so the full cost is paid regardless of how long you get/need to channel before the spell is interrupted or the target is dead. The spell is best used against crowds of targets that are not able to hit you to interrupt your channeling. Background This mage, wizard and sorcerer spell calls freezing sleet, snow and hailstones on foes. The cutting ice shards and hail pound down upon the caster’s enemies and foes, battering them and causing slashing, impact and cold damage. Calling down shards of freezing ice to batter and rend their enemies, Archmagi have been known to route entire armies using this spell. One of the Alliance’s most feared spells, Blizzard has become even more effective and deadly since its original inception during the First War. Summoning torrential storms from the frozen Mountains of Northeron, this potent spell calls down a fierce tempest of ice to assault the enemies of the Mage with a flurry of cold blades. Blizzard can be cast over large portions of the battlefield, making it an extremely powerful spell when facing legions of Orcish troops. Table of ranks Notes The 5 pc. bonus from the Netherwind Regalia set will increase the radius of the ground-target area by 25%, for a 10 yd radius. Talent improvements Improved Blizzard adds a chill effect to all targets within the targetted area which reduces their movement speed to 35% of maximum at max rank. This effect lasts for 1.5 seconds after they leave the area or the spell is no longer being channeled. Permafrost increases the effectiveness and the duration of this effect to 25% maximum movement speed for 4.5 seconds at max rank. Elemental Precision and Frost Channeling reduce the mana cost of this spell, while Frost Channeling also lowers its threat. Blizzard deals Frost damage, so the bonuses from Piercing Ice, Ice Shards and Arctic Winds apply to the spell. Arctic Reach extends the range to 36 yards at max rank. Blizzard is a channeled DoT spell and therefore cannot critically hit. Arcane Instability, Molten Fury and Playing with Fire can increase the effective damage output of this spell. Blizzard is the only frost spell that will neither apply nor benefit from the Winter's Chill effect. Tips and tactics *Some frost specialized mages will take Improved Blizzard and kite whole crowds of mobs relying on the snare effect to buy them enough distance to cast again. *Most mages find this spell hard to cast fully in PvP. Imagine that ice shards start to fall on players' heads: they'd start to look for the robed guy channeling to kill him as fast as they can. Now imagine they are 14 ticked off guys in plate armor. In a confusing enough battle, however, everyone MAY be too busy to look for little ol' you. Alternatively, cast one pulse of rank 1 Imp Blizzard with Permafrost on a choke point in pvp, and you will reveal all stealthed enemies moving with the group, and slow the entire group to 25% for 4.5 seconds. *The large radius of this spell makes it an excellent way to find stealthed Rogues. Target a Rank 1 Blizzard where you think your enemy might be; if he's there, you'll break his stealth, and if not you haven't used too much mana. Arcane Explosion is an alternative method that requires you to be very near the Rogue before you find him. Farming and leveling with Blizzard The Blizzard spell is - when upgraded through talents - a great tool to rapidly gain experience and to smash whole groups of mobs at once making it a powerful farming spell as well. *In contrast to fire-based AoE spells like Flame Strike Blizzard must be channeled. However it will slow down enemies extremely (namely by 75% if fully upgraded) and often freeze them in place. *Blizzard can NOT land critical strikes (like all other pure AoE spells) but instead does awesome damage over time. When focussing on Blizzard +spelldamage is very useful while +spellcrit is useless. Increasing your spell hit chance will make it less likely that mobs resist single waves of Blizzard and hence reducing the danger of mobs breaking free of the slowing effect. Remember the base miss chance versus spells of mobs which are the same level as your character is 5% and can be reduced to 1%. *There are many places in Azeroth and Outland stuffed with stupid melee mobs. These are the perfect targets if you want to excessively make use of Blizzard to farm and/or level quickly. The best target would probably be a melee mob with caster stats meaning low hitpoints and thus less mana required to kill it. Unfortunately these types of enemies are very rare in WoW. An example would be the wrathbringers right after the entrance to Shadowmoon Valley. They have no ranged attack except their long-cooldown firewave and would be perfect targets if they were not mixed with legion smithes that have a lot more hitpoints. To sum it up: find a region with NO ranged attackers and with enough mobs that can be easily pulled. Example: for level ~49-55 you may consider the graveyard northeast of Chillwind Point in the Western Plaguelands. There are loads of skeletons and ghouls with no ranged attacks. * Most important: the more mobs you can kill with one blizzard the more effective you will be. Sounds logical, he? Try to attract at least 5 mobs and if possible increase this number as much as you like. *My standard tactic is pulling mobs with Ice Lance or rank 1 frostbolts. Use Ice Lance if you want to be more mobile and frostbolt if you wish to spend less mana. Then wait until all mobs are near you, freeze them with your Frost Nova, teleport away from them and start blizzarding. Repeat this if necessary. From level 50 on you may use your water elemental to freeze them, too. If things become tricky just blast them with arcane explosion and/or Cone of Cold. Category:Mage Abilities Category:AOE Spells Category:Frost Spells